Questions Remain About Missing Iraq Explosives

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Army demolition unit removed and destroyed up to 250 tons of explosives from an Iraqi storage complex shortly after the fall of Baghdad, but Pentagon officials were unable to say Friday whether the destroyed munitions were part of a cache of weaponry that U.N. inspectors said disappeared in the post-invasion chaos.

At a Pentagon news conference, Army Maj. Austin Pearson said his unit removed 200 to 250 tons of TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords and white phosphorus rounds from the site April 13, several days after the fall of Baghdad to American troops. Yet he could not say whether any of these were among the weapons inventoried by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"I did not see any IAEA seals at any of the locations we went into," Pearson said. "I was not looking for that."

While offering a fragment of new and inconclusive evidence, Pentagon officials were unable to refute the most compelling suggestion that U.S. troops failed to safeguard the huge al Qa Qaa ammunition site: a videotape taken by a Minnesota television station showing American soldiers breaking into sealed bunkers April 18, 2003, to find stacked crates of explosives.

The videotape appeared to show soldiers using tools to cut through wire seals left by the IAEA.

The munitions have been a top issue in the campaign between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, who has charged that their theft exemplifies failures by the president.

Pentagon officials all week have tried to discredit these charges. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a radio interview Thursday that the weapons may have been removed by Saddam Hussein's forces in the days before the invasion.

Pentagon officials on Friday took a different tack, suggesting that large quantities of the explosives at al Qa Qaa were removed and destroyed by U.S. forces after the war.